In a bid to become a major player in all its businesses and mop up funds from FIIs and PEs, Dalmia Cement (Bharat) Ltd (DCBL) has launched a restructuring drive in all its units, including cement, sugar, power and refractories. For the purpose, DCBL has roped in leading consultants such as McKinsey and E&Y, among others.
As part of the restructuring exercise, DCBL has decided to sell upto 15% to FIIs to part-fund the cement expansion capacity to 30 million tonne capacity from the existing 14.5 million tonne (including that of OCL Ltd of Orissa) by 2015. This will entail an investment of Rs 4,500 crore, said official spokesperson R Gurumurthy.
He said, ?The move is aimed at taking each of the businesses to a higher level by exploiting the huge emerging opportunities in India while making them non-dependable on each other. The other important reason is also to attract funds from FIIs and PEs among investors.?
Gurumurthy added, ?As part of this exercise, we have decided to divest upto 15% stake in DCBL to FIIs through QIPs to part-finance the massive cement expansion plans. We are aiming at taking the capacity to 30 MT by 2015 through a few greenfield projects as well as debottlenecking at some plants. We have licences and plan to put up plants in Belgaum, Gulbarga (Karnataka), Meghalaya and Himachal Pradesh with a capacity of 2.5 million tonne each to be scaled up later. We also have lincenses in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, for which we will take a call at a later stage.?
The company has tied up the debt portion of around Rs 3,200 crore with IDBI Bank-led consortium and has invested close to Rs 450 crore towards the new projects. For the remaining part of the equity, DCBL will divest up to 15% stake, he said, adding the overall cement demand is estimated to be around 550 million by 2015 where DCBL would like to play a major role.
